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Filipino Culture Quotes

Browse 9 quotes about Filipino Culture.

Filipino Culture Quotes

“Paz smiled, and answered the way Hero would learn she always answered: rather than lying, or even dodging the question, she preferred to speak the supposedly shameful truth as if it were something to be proud of. Of course not, she said, her voice sweet and direct. We're too poor to have anything like a car. She made it sound like it was desirable not to have a car, ridiculous to even want one. Hero had been impressed, not least of all because even she'd gotten in the habit of leaving a room whenever Tita Ticay entered it, terrified of her venomous tongue, her keen eyes, the ease with which she spotted weakness, and the please with which she toyed with it.”

HonestyGossipSocial ClassFilipino Culture
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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“Paz was a few years older than her; looked younger. Hero saw her alone on the veranda, in a black dress patterned with what looked like large sampaguita vines. Her center-parted hair reached just to the top of her ass; it was the most expensive-looking thing about her. She appeared to understand that beauty, at least, was also a kind of wealth.”

BeautyClassSocial CapitalFilipino AuthorsStandards Of BeautyFilipino Culture
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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“Hero was touched by the small gesture of courtesy, at first only minutely, and then, for no reason at all, deeply and wholly. It was possible she was about to cry, here in this kitchen, for the first time since she'd arrived in America. To prevent that from happening, she stuffed her mouth with an entire quarter of the pizza, then huffed and gasped as the molten bite burned her tongue.”

EmotionsMaskFamily RelationshipsShieldIntergenerational TraumaCompartmentalizationFilipino CultureDisembodiedFilipino AuthorFilipino Psychology
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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“...humor is, in fact, a Filipino national weapon---one that is utilized not only to reflect social foibles and cultural beliefs that allow Filipinos to find belonging in using humor as a response to crippling national horrors, but one that is used to train an apparently disparaging look at themselves as victims of embarrassing and painful historical, political, or cultural circumstances. We see in these texts that the laughter that resonates in the Filipino is more than just an acceptable national trait that underscores the fixed Filipino stereotype of cheerfulness and pleasantness.”

HumorPhilippinesFilipinoFilipino CultureFilipino Humor
Author:Maria Rhodora G. Ancheta
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“Hero had the sense that Pol's Ilocano was stuck in time, that he only wanted to speak it with the people he'd always spoken it to, but even when Hero and Pol spoke in Ilocano with each other in California, there was a playacting stiffness in their voices that hadn't been there back in Vigan, when Hero used to hang on every word.”

LanguageImmigrationFilipinoImmigrant ExperienceFamily DynamicsFilipino AuthorsFilipino CultureIntergenerational Relations
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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“Hero opened her mouth, still unsure of whether to use English or Tagalog when talking to Paz. Paz had a habit of speaking to Roni in a mixture of English, Tagalog, and Pangasinan. It felt like Roni didn't really know the difference between Tagalog and Pangasinan, and moved between the two interchangeably as if they were one language. Nobody had told her otherwise, Hero supposed. But for Hero, listening to the mixture was like listening to a radio whose transmission would occasionally short out; she'd get half a sentence, then nothing -- eventually the intelligible parts would start back up, but she'd already lost her place in the conversation. But when Pol would come in, they'd switch to English, and like adjusting a dial to get a sharper signal, Hero would be able to tune in again.”

LanguageImmigrationFilipino AuthorsThird Culture KidsFilipino Culture
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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